Operator reluctance

The success of cross border transport
regionally to some extent depends
on Swaziland’s infrastructure.
Both for road and rail, the small
landlocked country is disproportionately
active in the movement of goods.
Swaziland is a “bridge country” where
SA goods moved by rail pass through in
transit to Durban, and SA cargo moved
by road to Maputo uses the country
for passage.
It is therefore always good news when
Swazi officials announce they have found
a donor foreign government or agency to
fund a new highway or rail upgrade, or that
movement can be detected in the glacial
pace of extending border post operating
hours so that customs services at the border
(coordinated between SA, Swaziland and
Mozambique) can function on a 24/7
basis. Swazi officials always frame talk
of extending border hours in terms of
tourism, but in fact road commerce would
be the principal beneficiary – or rather the
Swazi economy would receive the biggest
boost from additional road transport
activity.
Presently, even the country’s busiest
border post at Oshoek, which is favoured
by most traffic going to and from Gauteng,
operates at the extremely limited hours of
07:00. to 22:00.
Swaziland’s embrace of SADC
protocol-mandated electronic clearance of
goods has been fitful. More training for
customs personnel is essential, road freight
sources say. Swazi customs officials
seem reluctant to change their old ways
of doing things, resulting in a continuation
of now quite unnecessary waits for goods
clearance coming from SA.
Or does the fault lie with another “old
way of doing things” that customs agents
are loath to discard?
Some road freight operators suspect
Swazi customs agents are dragging
their feet on implementing electronic
customs clearance because there are few
opportunities for malfeasance once it
is operating.
2009 will likely see the matter resolved,
one way or another.